Pens on this page are part of my personal collection and are not for sale. If there is a magnifying-glass symbol () next to a pen, click the magnifying glass to view a zoomed version for more detail.

When the world turned to war in 1914, the pen industry responded, delivering hundreds of thousands of pens to the military. In 1916, Parker introduced the novel “Trench Pen,” with a blind cap covering a compartment at the back end of its barrel. Ink pellets, kept in the compartment, were mixed with water in the pen’s barrel to produce ink. This invention eliminated the need to obtain and carry liquid ink, a near impossibility under trench-warfare combat conditions. Other makers followed Parker’s lead, among them Mabie Todd, whose improved design for the pellet compartment features a cap that cannot be lost because it is not removable. (See the image to the right here, which shows the pellet compartment opened.)

My eyedropper-filling Swan “Military” pen was made in New York and is 5²³/32" capped, 6¾" posted. This pen has one of Mabie Todd’s remarkably smooth nibs. Its autograph band is engraved Alfred Abelson 6–4–18.

Parker’s “Diamond Jubilee” Baby: The 75 — and Its Heritage

Nib Info

In late 1963, after a series of remarkable and innovative pens beginning with the “51”, the George S. Parker Pen Company celebrated its 75th year by introducing yet another classic and one of the most enduringly collectible pens of all time, the Parker 75. Designed as a cartridge/converter pen, the brilliantly ergonomic 75 was initially provided with a squeeze converter resembling the Aero-metric filler in the “51” family. Produced in a variety of body materials that include Lustraloy, sterling silver, gold, and specialty metals such as silver recovered from Nuestra Señora de Atocha, a galleon in the Spanish treasure fleet that sank near Florida in 1715, and brass from the ocean liner Queen Elizabeth, the 75 was introduced and is perhaps best known in its sterling silver Crosshatch (“ciselé”) edition, shown here. My early U.S.-made “Flat-Top” 75 has a chrome section ring with a 0 reference mark and is fitted with a Nº 66 14K medium nib. It is 5¹/16" capped, 5½" posted.

The advanced features of the 75, such as its ergonomic section and its adjustable nib, did not spring fully armed into existence as did Athena from the brow of Zeus. The company developed them over a period of several years and evaluated their marketplace acceptance, a year before introducing the 75, with the Parker VP (Very Personal). At 5⁷/16" capped and 5¹⁵/16" posted, the VP is a bit bigger than the 75. With its spare decoration that includes a barrel jewel without a tassie, it still looks remarkably modern. With an extra-fine nib, it's a pleasure to use.

The advanced features of the 75 (déjà vu!) were obviously adaptable to other pen models, and in 1983 the Parker Premier made its appearance. Identical to the 75 internally, the Premier is longer and heavier at 5³/8" capped and 6¹/32" posted, — and it’s trimmed a little more upscale. There was a ciselé version, of course, and a plethora of lacquers and other metal finishes graced the display cabinets and the pockets of purchasers. I consider the most elegantly attractive Premier finish to be the Athens, so that's what I have. Befitting its luxurious image, it‘s fitted with a smooth broad nib to lay down a most impressive signature.

Industrial Design, Redux

Profile

Hoping to recover from the nearly fatal disaster that was the CA ballpoint, the Eversharp company engaged noted industrial designer Raymond Loewy to design a successor to its remarkably successful Skyline, whose popularity was fading as fashions changed. Loewy, the designer of the Pennsylvania Railroad’s famed GG-1 electric locomotive, the Electrolux vacuum cleaner, and the 1947 Studebaker, produced a sleek new pen. Eversharp introduced it in 1948, naming it the Symphony. Internally identical to the Skyline, the Symphony is smoother, more bullet-shaped at both ends. The pen’s most distinctive feature is its “slipper” cap, which looks somewhat as if it had been fashioned from halves of two caps, one slightly longer than the other, with the clip on the shorter side.

The first pen shown here is a first-generation blue model, showing the edgy Loewy design, with its angular clip and bandless matte-finished cap. This pen, 5½" capped and 5⁷/8" posted, has a lovely fine semiflex nib.

The next pen is a dark green second-generation Deluxe model, with a broad gold-filled band that wraps around the lip of the chrome cap. The rounder curves show that Eversharp had begun to have second thoughts about the edginess of Loewy’s design. With a typically butter-smooth medium nib, this pen is 5½" capped and 6³/16" posted.

Following the Deluxe is another second-generation model, fitted with a gold-filled cap and called the Golden Symphony. This pen is black, and its slightly flexible fine nib is a delight, and the pen is 5¹⁷/32" capped and 6⁹/32" posted.

The third generation pretty well obliterates the Loewy design, with even more rounded contours and the disappearance of the slipper cap — and the Symphony name. At 5½" capped and 6⁷/32" posted, this dark blue pen is at least the same size as its predecessor. Its extra-fine but very smooth rigid nib may have increased a secretary’s speed at shorthand.

Over the years, many of the major pen companies also produced “off-brand” pens. Some of these pens were made with no name at all, and others were products of secondary companies established to allow their manufacture without risking the prestige of the original company’s name or because the off-brand product was so different as to cause confusion about the company’s main products. Wasp, whose name is merely the initials of the name W. A. Sheaffer Pen Company, is a great example of one such secondary brand.

Sheaffer used Wasp as a testing ground for the plunger filling system that the company had perfected; in 1934, Wasp pens appeared with the new Vacuum-Fil system. My WASP VACUUM-FIL pen is an example of the development process, as instead of Sheaffer’s later combined blind-cap plunger knob, it has a removable blind cap and a brass plunger knob. This is a fat, oversize pen, at 5³/32" capped and 6⁵/32" posted. This green Lizard-Skin pen came to me with its barrel in two pieces, broken through about ¼" from the threads and with a lizard scale-sized chip missing, and with its cap lip split.

The next pen here, a wonderful Oversize Clipper Deluxe in Grey Pearl, was priced at $5.00 and was made in 1937. Its design from end to end, including even the great striped/blocked celluloid pattern, is among the most dramatically Art Deco pen designs of all time. Wasp Clippers have duo-point nibs of 12K gold, which costs slightly less than 14K. My pen is 5¹/8" capped, 6³/8" posted, and it has a lovely two-tone firm fine/extra-fine duo-point nib.

My second Clipper, which is also Oversize, is a black 1938 Vacuum-Fil model with a custom-retipped medium/fine duo-point stub nib. This pen’s ordinary band marks it as a Standard model, and it bears a “price” mark of 395.

© 2008 Richard F. Binder

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